Design and construction of a phosphorylatable chimeric monoclonal antibody with a highly stable phosphate

A recognition site for the cAMP-dependent protein kinase was introduced into the MAb-chCC49 by site-directed mutation of the coding sequence to make a variant of MAb-chCC49 containing a highly stable phosphate. To design this monoclonal antibody (MAb) without changing its immunoreactivity or biological properties, molecular modeling was used to locate appropriate regions for introduction of the cAMP-dependent phosphorylation site with desirable properties. We selected one position to mutate on the heavy chain based on molecular dynamics study of the solvated antibody. A vector expressing the mutant was constructed and transfected into mouse myeloma NS0 cells that expressed a high level of the resultant MAb-WW5. MAb-WW5 contained the cAMP-dependent phosphorylation site at the hinge region of the heavy chain, could be phosphorylated by the catalytic subunit of cAMP-dependent protein kinase with [gamma-32P]ATP to high specific activity, and retained the phosphate stably. Compared with MAb-chCC49K1, another phosphorylatable variant of MAb-chCC49, the phosphate attached to MAb-WW5 showed much improved stability: about a 10-fold increase in resistance to hydrolysis. MAb-WW5 exhibited the same binding specificity to the TAG-72 antigen on MCF-7 4C10 breast cancer cells as we observed with MAb-chCC49K1. The improved stability of the attached phosphate provides a MAb with potential to be used in diagnosis and therapy of adenocarcinomas.